The ordinary soldier could make himself understood only with motions and sundry gruntings, and consequently had to content himself with smoking in the sun or sleeping in the shade.  Everywhere was the atmosphere of physical relaxation after the long journey.  So far did my tension wear off, that I even forgot the resolution to hold my tongue.  Two officers leaning back in their chairs at a table by the wayside surveyed me intently as I came along.  Rather than wait to be challenged, I thought it best to turn aside and ask them my usual question, “How does one get to Liege?”

One of them answered somewhat stiffly, adding, “And where did you learn your German?” “I was in a German university a few months,” I replied.  “Which one?” the officer asked.  “Marburg,” I replied.

“Ah!” he said, this time with a smile; “that was mine.  I studied philology there.”

We talked together of the fine, rich life there, and I spoke of the students’ duels I had witnessed a few miles out.

“Ah!” he said, uncovering his head and pointing to the scars across his scalp; “that’s where I got these.  Perhaps I will get some deeper ones down in this country,” he added with a smile.

Ofttimes in the early morning hours I had trudged out to a students’ inn on the outskirts of Marburg.  As many times I had heard the solemn announcement of the umpire warning all assembled to disperse as the place might be raided by the police and all imprisoned.  That was a mere formality.  No one left.  The umpire forthwith cried “Los,” there was a flash of swords in the air as each duelist sought, and sometimes succeeded, in cutting his opponent’s face into a Hamburg steak.  It was a sanguinary affair and undoubtedly connived at by the officials.  When I had asked what was the point of it all, I was told that it developed Mut and Enschlossenheit—­a fine contempt of pain and blood.  That dueling was not without its contribution to the general program of German preparedness.  Only now the bloodletting was gone at on a colossal scale.

“Yes, that’s where I received these cuts,” this young officer said, “and if I do not get some too deep down here I’ll write to you after the war,” he added with another smile.  As I gave him my address, I asked for his.

“It’s against all the rules,” he answered.  “It can’t be done.  But you shall hear from me, I assure you,” he said with a hearty handshake.

Only once all the way into Liege did I feel any suspicion directed towards me.  That was when I presented my paper to the next guard, a morose-looking individual.  He looked at it very puzzled, and put several questions to me.  His last one was,

“Where is your home?”

“I come from Boston, Massachusetts,” I replied.

Encouraged with my success with the last officers, I ventured to ask him where he came from.

Looking me straight in the eyes, he replied very pointedly, “Ich komme aus Deutschland.”